Sonnet X Yet Love Mere Love

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful

And worthy of acceptation.

Fire is bright,

Let temple burn, or flax; an equal

Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:

And love is fire.

And when I say at needI love thee…mark!…I love thee—in thy sightI stand transfigured, glorified aright,

With conscience of the new rays that

Out of my face toward thine.

There's nothing

In love, when love the lowest: meanest

Who love God,

God accepts while loving so.

And what I feel, across the inferior

Of what I am, doth flash itself, and

How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.